Even though it's a bad idea, the cry for the U.S. to withdraw from the world is staging a revival -- and Pat Buchanan hopes to exploit it

In declaring his long-shot challenge to George Bush for the Republican presidential nomination, conservative columnist Pat Buchanan toned down some of his reactionary ideas. But he retained enough traces of xenophobia to sound like a flashback from the isolationist 1930s. Launching his campaign in New Hampshire, where the first 1992 presidential primary is only nine weeks away, Buchanan demanded no less than America's retreat from the world at flank speed.

The debater's edge he has polished as a television shout-show panelist helped Buchanan frame his differences with Bush in only 41 words: "He is a globalist and we are nationalists. He...